Berlin

Finally have Internet back! After 4 days! I did not realize just how much I used it until it was completely and utterly gone. Anyways, here is the blog about last week as promised!

Last Thursday, Kyle and I headed for the train station at seven in the morning to get reservations for spots on the train to Paris, then to Berlin. Unfortunately, all the spots on the TGV, the high-speed train, were full. The women said that there was a region train leaving in three minutes though. So off we went, running through the station to platform G. We arrived just as a train that said Paris on the side was pulling out. Fortunately for us though, when we asked the worker on the platform, he pointed at the screen that said platform J. We then ran over to the right platform and jumped on the train as the doors were closing. I was then felt to contemplate that fact that I definitely need to work on my French alphabet. The rest of the traveling was pretty straight-forward: switch stations, wait, get on a train, switch trains, and sleep. After 14 hours of traveling, we were in Berlin. We then had to find our hostel. You would think that this would be easy, but when your hostel is a boat (more on that later), it gets more difficult. Two hours and a couple wrong turns later we found our boat though. Yay!

            The next morning, we set out to explore the town. We decided that the best way to get a lay of the land would be from the air, 206 meters in the air to be exact. 360° Berlin was a great way to see the city. It was cool to see the scale of all of the different buildings that we would be seeing later in our trip. After returning to the surface, Kyle and I headed for the mall. Some may consider this blasphemous, but I actually like German fashion better than French fashion. It has managed to be both pretty and practical. It seems that French articles are made to tailor to only one of those two points. The result is clothing that is either black and boring or extremely extravagant. While we didn’t make any large purchases, we were both able to find NorthFace gloves that were 25% off, another US to European outlet adapter (in the 4-story electronics store), and Kyle was able to find a pair of nice shoes for 20 euros. That’s another thing that I like about shopping in Europe. January is sale month. The goal is to get rid of all of the old stuff to make room for the spring stuff. Almost every store in the mall was having a sale, all at the same time. It was brilliant! And this lasts for a whole month!

            Saturday was quite different. We left the hostel with our backpacks in tow since we would be taking the night train back to France. Thank goodness I packed light! Anyways, Kyle and I, and our new friend Peter, who had arrived at the hostel over the night, headed out for a free tour of the city. Peter introduced us to this new company called New Europe Tours. None of the tour guides are salaried and there is no up front cost for the tours. Instead, at the end of the tour, you are asked to give what you think is correct for the quality of the tour you received. We ended up missing the first tour due to construction on the SBAN lines in Berlin. That gave us time to check out the Reichstag (Parliament building) and the Brandenburg Gate though. In between the two structures, we came across something that was interesting in its own right, a huge tent marked Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. After the boys came to the conclusion that there was no way that they were going to be able to get in to see the models, we moved on.

            After having lunch, we were hopping onto the subway to get back to the Brandenburg Gate, the starting place of the next tour, when two huge German Police came over and said, “OUT!” Nothing else, just OUT. It was quite the experience. We thought maybe something serious was going on, but no, they were just switching out the trains, and we were still able to get to our destination on time. Now for the tour, it was 3 hours of snow, rain, sleet, and amazing architecture and history. I had gone to Berlin expecting to find a city trying to cover up its past, instead I found a city that had accepted its past and embracing its future. One of the most amazing places was actually parking lot. Under this parking lot was Hitler’s bunker. There was no sign, no plaque, no museum, just cars. Instead, two blocks away, there was a whole block memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. It sent quite a message. Another interesting point was the university. Students from this university had participated in the burning of books early in the days of Hitler. Therefore, in front of the school, there was a plaque that read, “Those who burn books will eventually burn people.” as well as a glass frame through which you could look down into a room with completely empty bookshelves.

     The last thing that we did before heading out of town was going to a little pub by Alexanderplatz. They had German beer on tap at the individual tables. There was a digital selection center the told you how many milliliters/liters of beer were on your tab.       We also took advantage of the opportunity to try schnitzel. It was quite delicious. After that, we said goodbye to Peter and headed for the train station. As a last grasp at German culture, we grabbed a strudel for the overnight train back to Paris.